Today our godchild Alex had what will hopefully be her last hip-related piece of surgery. They are rebuilding her hip socket to ensure that her leg stays in there as she grows older and will not have problems walking. She will be in a cast for between 5 and 12 weeks. Surgery went well and she will be sent home tomorrow which is great news. Will put pics in after our first visit to see her.
A.
Seriously. I'm starting to wonder if I should be building an ark as we will be floating away if this doesn't stop soon. The cats are going crazy (as they don't go out when it's wet) and so are the rest of us. Someone, please, do some sun-dances for us!!
Today I went out to our house for the first time since the builders started to work on it. It was weird to see the house in such a state but good progress appears to have been made. The kitchen looks smaller than I had originally imagined but I'm sure it will look nice once it's all finished. Toilet under the stairs is looking good. Upstairs the floor is done and the walls and ceiling are done so should be all downstairs focus from now on.
Here are some pics from the site:
In the afternoon we, of course, watched Sweden vs Spain. Nära skjuter ingen hare, as Roxanna would say. What ridiculous defending (lack of I mean) by the Swedes. Now they really need to beat Russia or we are out. Fingers crossed!
This week has been a very hectic one. It's the time of year where we have to deliver all of our annual performance reviews. This means doing a lot of compiling of feedback and writing. I currently have 9 people I have to do reviews for so this means at least 4.5 days of prep work. Started by working from home two days this week. First day went well - second day got eaten up by urgent stats need from my new boss. I also had VP on EMEA sales over for a meeting as well as head of EMEA Marketing.
On top of this I am hiring a new person at the moment so am interviewing. I don't like interviewing at the best of times and this position is a hard one to hire for (as the person needs to be strong in very different areas) so it's even more frustrating. The last interview of the week was a good one and now I just need to get approval from my boss to offer her the position. Fingers crossed!
At the end of Friday I was ready to be VERY nice to myself so I went to L.K. Bennett and bought myself a beautiful black patent leather bag. This bag and I are going to be very happy together - for a long time!
Post bag shopping I headed to the cinema to see Sex & the city with Stephanie and her friend Catherine. I must say I really enjoyed it. Sad and very very funny. I recommend it to anyone who liked the tv series for sure.
Saturday night I was over with Stephanie. We had not met in a few weeks so had a lot to catch up on while resting comfortably on her sofas in the sitting room :)
Sunday John and I headed to see the latest Indiana Jones movie. I love Harrison Ford and he didn't disappoint. In fact, considering he's 65 it's very impressive to see him running around chasing baddies. In either case - the movie delivered on exactly what I had expected and hence I was very happy. After movie we headed to Mao's for some Malaysian chicken - yumyum! A very nice afternoon out for me and John to have some us time.
Check this out for a bit of a laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egPgU5kAjKE
My colleague Gary is over from Springfield, Oregon for the week. This means meetings starting early in the morning and entertaining in the evenings. Thai one night and Lebanese another - yumyum! What I can really recommend for all of you folks out there is something we tried on his last night - strawberry and cucumber martini - superyummy!!
What I would advise you to stay away from is Ginger martini....
So we moved in with Mr P on a Saturday and on the Sunday and the Monday (it was a bank holiday so I didn't need to work) I stayed at home to chillax and help the cats settle in a bit. We have their litter trays and food and water in our bedroom so that they don't need to go anywhere else initially as they are so scared. They are under the bed most of the time really - Flash in particular. On the Monday Cookie finally ventured outside a bit but stayed close to me at all times. Mr P is particularly scary for them and they run as soon as they see or hear him. Aahhh...
What's very interesting but sad is with the food. I noticed that there were toys in the food bowls and initially thought that they were simply playing with them and that they accidentally kept landing in the food. This was until I spotted Cookie one night eating and then carefully placing the toys on top of the food - clearly hiding the food to protect it. Poor little sweetheart! Let's hope she feels more safe soon.
On the Monday the Dublin womens mini marathon was on and Katharine, Robert and Hannah was over to visit and to check it out (they run pretty close to where Mr P lives). It was one of the hottest days so far this year so I stayed in doors but Hannah was not only in sunblock but also wearing her glasses to stay protected:
She's walking pretty well at the moment and wants to walk all the time. Particularly funny in the garden where the surface is uneven and hence she falls a lot but keeps getting up and walking again. And she doesn't want any help!
Yes, Derek and Martin turned up about 11.30 this morning and just left w few minutes ago, together with John, to bring the first load of our stuff to a local warehouse where we will store it for the next 5 weeks. This is while we are having work done to the house. We think that another small load will be it and we will be ready to start moving our clothes etc to John's dad's house where we will be staying while the builders are around.
It's really weird to see our house this empty. It looks so much bigger! Packing everything up has actually been good as we have thrown so much stuff out. You don't realize how much unnecessary stuff you have until you have to pack it all up. Our back shed is now full of stuff that needs to go in a skip. Anyway, better go and continue tidying up before the boys come back.
Ciao!
Annica
P.S. The cats are very confused and nervous with everything that's going on. Normally in a situation when they are nervous they would hide under our bed but guess what - bed is dismantled already! So now they are hiding under a big bush out in the garden :)
So, it seems my niece Hannah passed on a nice stomach virus to me when we babysat her last Friday. Saturday evening while watching the Eurovision (yes - how hilarious! Bosnia Herzegovina was robbed!) I had to run to the bathroom to throw up and from then it didn't get much better until this morning. I slept most of yesterday and today feel I can eat again. What a start to the back to work week!
Yes, for the first time I finally got to see Bruce and the E-street lads perform last night in the RDS. I had expected it to be good but it was actually much better than I had thought. They played for about 2 and a half hours and the songs I remember hearing - and that I know the title of - are:
4th of July, Ashbury Park
Radio Nowhere
Long Walk Home
Living in the future
Girls in their summer clothes
Mary's place
Darlington County
No surrender
Glory Days
Dancing in the dark
Born to Run
The Rising
American Land
My favorite song for the night was probably Glory Days which is a bit sad - I know - but there was an amazing atmosphere for it. Same for Born to Run really. The funniest was Dancing in the Dark though when Bruce took a middle age bald man out of the audience and danced with him - we all laughed our assess of! I must say, Bruce looks very well for his age and is sexier at this stage of his life than 20 years ago. Good for you Patti!
A.
